Prepare for a night of storytelling with the Mountain Goats

Tuesday

Jun 25, 2013 at 8:30 AM

When it comes to storytelling through song, John Darnielle might be the king.

By Nicolien BuholzerNicolien.Buholzer@StarNewsOnline.com

When it comes to storytelling through song, John Darnielle might be the king.The Mountain Goats frontman, often called one of the best living songwriters, has certainly lived a life full of stories, from a childhood with an abusive stepfather to drug addiction to time as a psychiatric nurse. That history fuels his robust imagination; of the band's 14 albums, most tell a story, either fictional or autobiographical. The band, now based in Durham, will bring its stories to the Soapbox on Friday. The show comes as part of a tour featuring just Darnielle and fellow band member Peter Hughes, with drummer Jon Wurster absent.Friday's show also comes just about a month before the release of the remastered "All Hail West Texas." The 2002 album was the last one recorded on Darnielle's boombox before the band moved into the studio and, like several other albums, tells a story, though a loose one. The reissue has been something of a "secret plot," Darnielle wrote recently on the band's website. Amid requests for a reissue via Twitter and Tumblr, he remained as evasive as possible as he worked to put out "All Hail West Texas" on Merge Records and to release it on vinyl for the first time. The project forced him to go back through old tapes and dig up the corpses of some of his former selves. What has resulted is a remastered version of the album, with a few bonus tracks thrown in.The remastered "All Hail West Texas" follows last year's "Transcendental Youth," a concept album loosely focused around a group of people living in Washington state that touches on topics including outcasts, the mentally ill and recluses.Though Wurster will be missing, the show is sure to feature Darnielle's trademark rambling in between songs and the pure joy he seems to get from performing. He's a famously loquacious performer, and between the songs and rambles, concert-goers are sure to head home with their thirst for stories quenched.